Scientists Discover Astonishingly High Ancient Sea Levels
A group of scientists studying evidence preserved in cave formations have found that global sea levels were as much as 52 feet higher more than 3 million years ago than they are today.
Their findings, based on an analysis of deposits from Arta Cave on the island of Mallorca, depict a time when Earth was two to three degrees Celsius warmer than in the pre-industrial era, and have implications for the study of current-day sea-level rise.
Sea level rises as a result of melting ice sheets, but scientists have long worked to answer how fast and how much it could rise during a warming period.
“Constraining models for sea-level rise due to increased warming critically depends on actual measurements of past sea level,” said senior research scientist Victor Polyak in a statement. “This study provides very robust measurements of sea-level heights during the Pliocene.”
A closeup of the bulbous stalactitic feature of a phreatic overgrowth on speleothems (POS). (University of New Mexico)
The project zeroed in on cave deposits that form in coastal caves at the “interface” between brackish water and cave air when the ancient spaces were flooded by rising seas.
“We can use knowledge gained from past warm periods to tune ice sheet models that are then used to predict future ice sheet response to current global warming,” USF Department of Geosciences Professor Bogdan Onac explained.
The researchers were particularly interested in the mid-Piacenzian Warm Period, which was some 3 million years ago.
“The interval also marks the last time the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 [carbon dioxide levels] was as high as today, providing important clues about what the future holds in the face of current anthropogenic warming,” Onac said.
The research team included scientists from the University of New Mexico, the University of South Florida, Columbia University and Universitat de les Illes Balears.
The findings were published in the journal Nature.
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Squidly
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Sorry, you just invalidated your entire “study” ..
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Joseph Olson
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During the first two thousand years of the current Holocene Interglacial WARMING period, the mile thick ice caps over the northern hemisphere melted, raising ocean levels by +400 feet, with NO human CO2, or natural CO2. All of climaclownology is a directed narrative LIE and must be decertified, removed from science. History will record this as elitist hoax.
“Modern Phrenology Society Newsletter” > satire > FauxScienceSlayer(.)com
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jerry krause
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Hi Readers,
I read: The researchers were particularly interested in the mid-Piacenzian Warm Period, which was some 3 million years ago.”
Some people used to question: How do we know the date (3 million years ago) of the Placenzian Warm Period? The answer was, as I remember, was that the geologists told us so.
But we know that the geologists were not the first to observe the evidence of the “melting ice sheets”, And geologists would not accept the clear evidence that ‘continents had drifted apart’.
Hence, the geological community clearly has had a credibility problem as late as the 20th Century.
“ELKO, Nev. (AP) — A fossil found in northeastern Nevada shows a newly discovered fish species that scientists believe looked, and ate, like a shark.” (https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/08/06/fossil-fish-species-elko-nevada-birgeria/)
The present elevation of Elko Nev. is over 5000 feet.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Stevyn Dembo
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My first thought on these sea-level rise stories is: How have they accounted for land rise/subsidence over time? People fail to realise that the land masses are dynamic and in motion all the time. What was once sea level in the past may be 2000 ft under water today … or what was once sea-level can be the top a of a mountain today,. The geoscientific community accepted plate-tectonic theory after seafloor spreading was validated in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Alarmists hate that question.
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Graeme Mochrie
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I live beside the sea and all along the coast are raised beaches. I’ve never measured, but I’d guess about 20m above today’s sea level. The sea was not that much higher in the past. The beaches are there because when the ice melted, the land was no longer weighted down and so bobbed up to it’s present position. The land is still bobbing up ten thousand years later. This does not mean the sea level is falling it just means that geological processes take a long time. Ten thousand years is a short geological time.
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tom0mason
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It’s a good job that land elevation has not changed over the years, eh?
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